Languages of Eirethune
General The languages of Eirethune have changed over time, but are derived from the languages of the two ancient species of the world, the Madur & the Khalid-Ka. Those ancient languages are only known by scholars or perhaps some lost clan somewhere in the far expanses of the world, but those ancient languages are the roots for all of the modern languages used by the people of Eirethune. Common Tongue? One major constant -- there is no single Common tongue in Eirethune. However, there are some regional common tongues that are used based on the Language Tree below. That being said, for trading in particular, there is a simple, more physical sign language which is used pretty much everywhere in Eirethune. The trade sign language does not have any lyricism, but you can easily convey emotion with a particular request or response through the abruptness or smoothness of the execution of a particular sign. Most people in Eirethune are taught basic knowledge of the trade sign language, just in case they need something from someone while on the road. Language Tree The following image shows the various common languages that are present in Eirethune. Most of the commonly used tongues are leaves on the tree to the right. There are a few older languages which are still spoken which haven't changed in centuries (or even millennium). One concept to note is that there are parts of the tree which are shown as Early. These early 2nd Age languages were spoken across the world at one time, but people and creatures that inhabited the tumultuous early times of the world. There are creatures that existed then or on other planes who spoke those early languages, and these languages are often researched for bringing back spells and rituals of that time, or when someone runs into a creature from other planes or other times. There is no infernal, per se, but some of these early languages act as a conduit to speak with these creatures of other worlds, planes and gods. Written Script Each Early ''language has a written script associated with it. Most of the leaf languages will use that script as well. Examples of each ''Early ''written script are given on the image as well. For purposes of what font is what: Understanding Other Languages The tree is the guide for how difficult it is understanding another language. All languages to come from 2 common sources which are somewhat related themselves, but over time, the changes in languages have increased the complexity in understanding the languages as they spread out. Think of each step that you would have to travel away from a language you know as +5 difficulty in d20 terms. If you speak the same language, there would be a difficulty of ZERO (just don't roll a 1 on d20). For each step you move up and down the tree, you increase the difficulty by FIVE. For instance, for a person from '''Bavarin '''to get their words across to someone from '''Angleside', the general difficulty would be 10 (Saris Isar -> Anaris (+5) -> Cith Isar (+5)). You don't need to roll d20 every time you talk unless you're trying to speak to someone that's MORE than 10 away. The passive language comprehension roll is 10, so those Saris Isar is generally understood by speakers of Cith Isar. It's only more eloquent speech or attempts to sound like you're from a particular region that would require an Ability Check. The one caveat to language difficulty is when you go from one Early ''language to its neighbor or to either Madur or Khalid-Ka. The ''Early ''languages are not incredibly similar and in order to understand one of the others within the same main branch (read: Madur or Khalid-Ka), you need to drop back to that main root. Each node connected to the main root (read: Madur or Khalid-Ka) has a difficulty of TEN when going through the main root. To clarify, as long as you stay within a branch of a single ''Early ''language, the difficulty to understand is FIVE per change. When you have to go back to the main root languages, the transitions are TEN per change. For example, for someone from '''Aden Shahn ''(Goldar) to understand someone from '''Teldor '(Irar), the path would be Goldar->Helenar (+5) -> Irar (+5) = 10. However, if the person from Aden Shahn (Goldar) wanted to understand someone from Rhorden (IXolarg), the path would be Goldar->Helenar (+5) -> Madur (+10) -> Ariel (+10) -> Xolarg (+5) = 25. So yeah, the languages are different. There might be a cognate somewhere, but really different otherwise. Regional Common Tongues A common practice to try to reach as many people as they can is for someone to attempt to speak the ancestral language of their most familiar language. For example, a merchant who travels in the South West section of Eirethune would commonly learn and use Anaris ''as their spoken language. ''Anaris ''would only be a FIVE difficulty for people from '''Angleside '''or '''Bavarin' to understand, and a TEN difficulty for people from the Southland to understand. With a passive TEN difficulty, you can definitely convey concepts and information, although eloquence may drop out a bit, and with FIVE difficulty, you really could bargain fairly effectively. Speakers always can use their INT Mod when testing comprehension, and if they have a Linguistics '''skill or a background in '''Diplomacy, they can also add their proficiency. Pronunciation Key There are a few different root language types present in Eirethune although most words tend to either follow Germanic or Celtic paradigms. The language root can be difficult to identify, but there are a few letter combinations which will clearly determine the correct root. In particular, several of the diphthongs or clusters are always Celtic so the rest of the word should also follow the Celtic paradigm. Vowels are '''''Long if any of the following are true: # It is immediately followed by an ‘h’ o in oh is long # There is only one consonant following the vowel before the next vowel ‘u’ in cute is long. There are some other very good indicators of which language root a particular word falls under. Any word which begins with the following is definitely Celtic: Y, CY, GW, LL, and DD. Any word which uses a ‘V’ or ‘K’ is Germanic. If the only vowels in the word are ‘Y’ or ‘W’, then the word is Celtic.